1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a method of fabricating the product of activated carbon fiber supporting silver, which the activated carbon fibers are impregnated in a silver compound solution to deposit the silver on the surfaces of the activated carbon fibers and the product thereof has a superior antibacterial property.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the present industry, industrial wastewater and home wastewater are increased. Activated carbon has been broadly applied to the treatment of wastewater and drink water for a long time. The carbon material has a well property of bioaffinity to adsorb bacteria and microorganisms. But the activated carbon becomes another pollutant today, as shown in FIG. 2.
Activated carbon fibers are a new adsorbent with a superior performance. The activated carbon fibers, the granulated activated carbon and the powdered activated carbon are the carbon materials with a great amount of pores. They are superior in adsorbent property, antibiotic resistance, hydrophobic property, electron supply and specific surface area and so on. The main differences between the activated carbon fiber and the granulated activated carbon are molecule structure, appearance and surface pores' structure. To compare with the conventional activated carbon, the activated carbon fiber has a less diffusive resistance in adsorption and in separation and can be fabricated into various forms, such as felt or cloth, in second process. The activated carbon fiber has a greater specific surface area and adsorption efficiency than the granulated activated carbon.
To form silver on the activated carbon fibers for the antibacterial property, one had provided silver acetate solution mixed with pitch, and then taking the spinning process and stabilization, and then taking activation under 900° C. via vapor. It gets activated carbon fibers with silver of 0.03% by weight. In aforesaid method, it still has to improve the spinning process and activation to fabricate the activated carbon fibers supporting silver with a greater specific surface area.
Another one had provided the pitch base activated carbon fibers impregnated in a monounsaturated silver acetate solution for twelve hours, and then takes the high temperature degration process in nitrogen gas under 420° C. for 30 minutes to get the pitch base activated carbon fibers supporting silver. This method still has drawbacks of how to average the silver distribution and how to precipitate silver from water.
The present inventor creates a method to overcome aforesaid drawbacks and to fabricate activated carbon with antibacterial property. In the result of washing test, the silver leachability is less than 50 ppb. It conforms to US drink water standard.